"From the Depths of Hell, I Stabbath Thee"

Ten bucks if you can tell me where the title of this entry is originally quoted from. Five more if you can tell me what movie also used a variation on the quote to great effectiveness.

Anyway, I use that quote because I just finished the last BIS 111 exam three minutes ago. I couldn't be happier to have completed that class ... it's really the first course I've taken at Lehigh with absolutely no educational merit at all. Everything else, whether regarding economics, engineering, business, etc, has always had some form of learning that I was able to take advantage of while I was there. That even includes overall shitty classes like Management 280 and IBE 098, from which I learned about ISO 9000 Standards and logistics costs, respectively.

Note: BIS 111 is "Business Information Systems." It outlines how technology like computers and the Internet have allowed businesses to communicate and change in the modern world. The majority of the topics it covers, however, include things as basic as the parts of a computer and how data is sent through cables.

BIS 111 in and of itself, even when compared to those crappy classes, is a truly ridiculous experience. Anyone who has ever even looked at a computer and has two ounces of common sense can answer the majority of the test questions accurately. You might argue that the Microsoft Access tutorials are educational- but they are not. A monkey with his thumb in his butt and a cursory knowledge of how to navigate a "Help" menu could have completed the same exercises we did, and probably in the same amount of time. Learning about computer and internet design and structure might have been vaguely interesting, but the topic was presented in such little detail as to have been trivialized beyond any discernable value. Knowing, for example, that "programming" is the actual implementation of a computer system design is really just kinda ... I don't know ... universal? As in you've probably known what "programming" was since you first logged onto AOL 3.0 in 5th grade?

Given how stupid the class itself is, I can't express how happy I am to have taken it online instead of during the schoolyear. Having to sit through actual lectures on what a motherboard is three times a week would have been unbearable. I was luckily given the opportunity to completely skip any and all of the material (while still handing in homework), place reference tabs inside the textbook half an hour before the tests, and then take the tests. Studying hasn't been this easy since microeconomics with O'Brien. Having no homework and a set of cookie-cutter exams, I think I devoted a total of ten hours to that class outside of lecture the whole semester. Plus, there was even the extra bonus of watching business students burst into tears at the mention of partial derivatives. God, those were good times.

I will say this about the content of BIS 111 ... if you know it, you should be able to test out of it and not have to waste your time taking it. If you don't know it, jump on the bandwagon ASAP and figure it out. I'm no technology whiz- my primary computer functionality barely transcends word processing, google searching, e-mailing, and Starcraft- but this is stuff that is only going to become more prevalent and important in the future. That's undoubtedly why Lehigh is teaching it ... they're just doing it poorly.

So here's to the end of BIS 111. You were the ultimate Dead Monkey course, and I spit upon your grave.

Happy Friday.